


We Soldiered Together

by Wordancer



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 15:52:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18577669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordancer/pseuds/Wordancer
Summary: Klaus and Dave come together like the vines in the jungles of Vietnam, close and irrevocable and made for each other.





	We Soldiered Together

**Author's Note:**

> I can't with these two.  
> I changed some things, but it all still works out, because *waves hands.*

“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do this. What am I doing?” Klaus breathed to himself as he paced outside the camp, on the pretense of going to relieve himself. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and yearned quietly for drugs, drink, anything to take the hard edge of reality away.

“Hey.” Klaus turned at the sound of branches snapping to find Dave standing in the underbrush, helmet lodged between his elbow and side. “You forgot this.” He held out the helmet.

Klaus let out a laugh that was more like a sob. Yet another inadequacy. “Thanks.”

“It’s okay, you know,” Dave said.

Klaus put on his helmet and rubbed at his eyes. “What’s okay?”

“Being afraid. Feeling like you can’t take anymore. We all get that way. It’s this place.” Dave looked around at the jungle in the dark, tangled and creaking and haunted by the ghosts of the war dead that Klaus was trying not to see. “It drives a man wild, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Klaus laughed breathlessly. “Wild.”

“Come on. It’s better around people.” Dave held out a hand, beckoning Klaus back to the bonfire and the other guys. Klaus looked into the depths of the jungle, at the bloodied corpses with bits missing from their bodies, who looked back at him with dark eyes. He turned around and followed Dave back to the warmth and laughter of another silly card game playing for pebbles. Dave didn’t leave his side all night, until they went into their tents to sleep. It helped.

Klaus wasn’t the only one who woke the camp up with his screams, but as the nights wore on, it became clear that he was the one who did it the most often. Klaus could tell it irritated the more twitchy, trigger happy members of the unit, including his tent mate, Mack. It came to a head one night as Klaus woke up from a particularly nasty recollection of his time locked in the crypt as a child to find Mack sitting up and clutching at his head in his bedroll with wide eyes. “Shut up!” Mack yelled. “Shaddupshaddupshut UP! You’re driving me crazy, I can’t handle it anymore!” He shot up out of his bedroll and grabbed Klaus’ arm, pulling him out of the tent and throwing him on the dirt. “Find somewhere else to sleep!”

“Shut up!” Someone in the tent next to them shouted.

Klaus wobbled to his feet, still shaking with adrenaline. “Hey, sorry, Mack, I didn’t mean to wake you up -”

Mack shoved him. Klaus stumbled back, and Mack shoved him again, into the side of another tent. Klaus fell against the fabric, and something ripped. “The fuck!” Someone shouted on the other side of the fabric, and two more men rolled out of their tent.

“Who’s making all that noise?!” Someone yelled from the other side of camp. “You wanna bring the guerillas right down on us?!”

“Haha, now, let’s all be reasonable,” Klaus said as Mack and the two others advanced on him, with varying degrees of anger. “It was an accident, hey?”

“What’s going on here?” Klaus looked to find Dave poking his head out of another tent, then walking toward them, shrugging into his undershirt, boots unlaced. “What’s all this, fellas?”

“This prick won’t let me sleep!” Mack shouted. “I need to fucking sleep!”

Klaus scurried away from the three men advancing on him and stopped by Dave’s side. “Well, there’s an obvious solution to this, which we could’ve straightened out earlier today, if you’d just told us, Mack,” said Dave. He stepped subtly in front of Klaus and Mack took a step forward. “We just need to arrange a switch up of tent partners. Now, Joe’s a real quiet sleeper, and I bet he wouldn’t mind switching with Klaus,” Dave raised his voice, “would you, Joe?”

“Anything to let me get back to sleep!” Joe’s muffled voice sounded from Dave’s tent.

Dave turned and looked at Klaus kindly. “Klaus, you don’t mind sharing with me, do you?”

“Not at all,” Klaus said, his hind-brain taking the moment to appreciate the way Dave’s muscles shifted in the moonlight.

“Good, it’s settled then. Everyone back to sleep,” Dave said, shooing everyone back into their tents, helping the two who’d gotten their tent destroyed put it back up. Joe and Klaus switched their bedrolls with quick efficiency, Joe bleary eyed and terse, Klaus relieved. His nerves returned to him as he stood in front of Dave, bedroll in his arms, on the muddy ground with the moon and stars overhead. Dave just smiled gently and took Klaus’ bedroll from him, nodding at his tent. “Well, get on in there,” he said. Klaus did, and Dave helped him get set back up. “Don’t mind those guys, they’re just tired.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Klaus said. “Sorry in advance if I wake you up. I probably will.”

“Same here,” Dave said. “You’re not the only one with a few ghosts.”

“Yeah. I have more than most, though.”

“Don’t know about that,” Dave said as he took his shirt and boots off and relaxed back in his bunk with a sigh.

Klaus stared, and felt his cheeks heat up. Embarrassed by his own embarrassment, because since when did he blush at the sight of a shirtless man, he turned his face away to stare at the opening in the tent. “Hey, Dave?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t know. Guess I do, being here,” Dave said.

“I believe in ghosts,” Klaus said. “I see them all the time.”

“That must be hard.”

Klaus sighed and fell back against his bedroll, closing his eyes. “You have no idea.”

“Hey.” Klaus felt Dave’s hand on his shoulder, and he looked up, surprised. “You know you can always come to me, if it gets bad, right?”

Klaus’ lips twitched upward in a slight smile. “I do now.”

“Good.” Dave let his arm fall back onto his own bed. “Now get some sleep, morning won’t wait for either of us.”

“Yeah.” Klaus closed his eyes. The nightmares kept coming, but true to his word, Dave kept him company through it whenever Klaus went to him. He didn’t ever grow angry or short with Klaus, even when Klaus woke him in the middle of the night, which happened all too often. Klaus appreciated it beyond words, and fell into a kind of disbelieving relaxation and sense of home whenever Dave was around.

It was difficult, being clean, but there was little opportunity to find drugs in the jungles of Vietnam until they neared a city and Klaus could feel temptation rising within him. It was a night like any other, except that it was in Vietnam, and Klaus had no idea what he was doing. His unit was off duty for the night, and the men had decided to go to the nearest club. Klaus had made short work of a batch of shots and was just considering seeking out something stronger. The world was pleasantly hazy by the time he bumped into Dave on the dance floor. He grinned with wild abandon and pressed himself up against Dave, who looked down at him in surprise and something else. Klaus felt his heart skip a beat as Dave wrapped an arm around his back instead of shoving him away. “More shots?” Dave asked, and Klaus nodded and leaned shamelessly against Dave’s side.

They wrapped each other’s arms around the other to down their shots, and Klaus felt a little breathless at how close they were. He looked into Dave’s half-closed eyes and couldn’t help returning his smile. Some girls pulled them away from the bar to dance, and Klaus and Dave didn’t reunite until after the song was over and they drew away from the rest of the crowd to lean against the wall. “Some party, huh?” Dave said. Klaus laughed in agreement, and Dave looked at him and kept looking. Klaus felt his laugh tapering off as he returned the stare. Dave reached out and rested his hand on the nape of Klaus’ neck, and Klaus’ breath hitched as Dave pulled him closer. Klaus stepped around and in front of Dave to get closer, and then Dave pressed their lips together. Klaus pressed closer and closer until he could feel all of Dave pressed against him, and he deepened the cautious kiss into something more carefree and intense.

Klaus couldn’t tell how long they stayed like that, just exploring each other’s mouths, but eventually Dave pulled away with a gentle smile and awestruck eyes, like Klaus was something amazing, something to cherish and revere. Klaus didn’t know how he got to that conclusion, but it felt exhilarating and a little frightening to look into Dave’s open adoration. Klaus didn’t know what his face was showing, but he felt amazed and grateful, so grateful for this moment of intimacy, this sudden and inevitable coming together.

“Want to get out of here?” Dave said, so softly Klaus almost couldn’t hear. He nodded eagerly, and Dave laughed quietly as he pecked Klaus on the lips once more. They found a seedy hotel and the night fell away from them in a rush of hands against skin, lips against lips, bodies entwined like the vines in the jungle, tangled irrevocably together.

The morning after, Klaus woke with a groan that turned into a blissful sigh despite his hangover as he remembered last night. He looked to his left to find Dave sprawled out beside him, dogtags gleaming in the faint light of the morning sun. Klaus snuggled up against Dave and threw his arm around him. Dave shifted with a groan, and his eyes slid slowly open. “Whuh?” Dave mumbled. Klaus smiled and leaned over Dave to kiss him quickly.

“Morning, sunshine,” Klaus said.

“Who – Klaus?” Dave pushed himself up onto his elbows and stared at Klaus with shock. Klaus felt his heart fall as he remembered one too many times a man would push him out of bed the morning after. Klaus drew slightly away, nervous.

“Hi, Dave.” He waved slightly, feeling a little awkward as Dave pulled the sheets up over his torso a little.

“Did we?” Dave blinked.

“Yup!” Klaus forced a grin, heart falling further.

“Oh.” Dave blinked again. “Okay.”

“O-kay?” Klaus repeated.

“Yeah, okay.” Dave briefly met Klaus’ eyes before looking down again, uncharacteristically shy as he pulled the sheets up a little further.

“You’re not…angry? Unhappy?” Klaus asked.

“Would have liked to remember it a little better.” Dave mumbled.

Klaus felt a smile breaking out on his face. “Well, baby, we can fix that.” He leaned closer again, giggling as red rose in Dave’s cheeks. “We can do it all over again.”

It was slower, more intimate, that morning. Dave gave Klaus his dogtags, after, and Klaus could feel his heart melt as Dave draped them around his neck.

Things were different and things were the same after that. When Klaus had his night terrors, Dave would hold him and kiss his tears away. When Dave retreated into a quieter, more morose state of mind, Klaus would draw him out of it with jokes and wild, ridiculous gestures. He would kiss him on the nose, fall over himself, roll around in the blankets, grin crazily, tell the strangest stories, all to get Dave smiling that gentle, heart stopping smile of his. Any break in the fighting was an opportunity for intimacy, for stolen kisses and brushes against each other, for hands touching and knees knocking together sitting next to each other. It was the worst place to be and the best way to feel all at once. Klaus wouldn’t have changed it if he could, until the fighting interrupted their relationship with breathtaking finality.

Klaus barely registered the blood on his hands as he fell through time back to his present day, barely felt anything at all besides soul-piercing sorrow. The world was bleak without Dave. Klaus returned to the mansion, numb and shell-shocked, and cleaned himself with robotic listlessness. Then there was no time to grieve, barely time to take a breath, because the world was ending. Klaus tried his best to care, but he found it hard to feel much at all without Dave there.

He decided to get sober, hoping for once to see a ghost, his ghost. He sat and shivered and grit his teeth through the withdrawal pains, through the memories. His chair fell to the side as he tried to free himself, his will breaking, but Diego had tied him to his chair too securely, and Klaus was stuck getting sober whether he liked it or not. He closed his eyes and fell limp against the rope, sobbing softly to himself.

“Klaus?”

Klaus’ eyes fluttered open to find a blurry, dark shape outside the door, and hope rose within him, painful and unstoppable. “Dave?”

“Hey.” Dave stepped closer, in his fatigues. He kneeled so that he could get closer to Klaus, and Klaus smiled disbelievingly.

“You’re here.”

“Of course I’m here.” Dave smiled back. “You could have told me you saw ghosts for real, you know.”

“I did,” Klaus said, grinning so hard his face ached with it.

Dave reached out toward him, and Klaus gasped as his hand made contact with Klaus’ cheek. Dave blinked and ran a finger down the side of Klaus’ face. “You feelin’ this?”

“I am,” Klaus breathed.

Dave ran his hands through Klaus’ hair, leaned down, and kissed Klaus breathless.

The world was still ending, and Klaus was eventually freed from his binding for another team meeting. He could barely pay attention, he was so focused on Dave following him, introducing himself to Ben, smiling that gentle smile of his back at Klaus at every opportunity.

It turned out Vanya was the cause of the end of the world, and Luther was right about it involving the moon, too. The jump through time was just as disorienting as before, and Klaus swore as he stumbled in his newly teenaged body.

“Well, now what?” Klaus said, staring around himself. A shock of horror and dread ran through him as nobody answered. “Dave?” He turned around and around. “Dave?!”

“Hey.”

Klaus turned and felt his body sag with relief at the sight of Dave, just as another thought occurred to him. “Oh, shit, I’m a kid now.”

Dave laughed. “I can wait. I can help you with your ghost problem, now, too,” he said. “Keep them away if they bother you too much, that sort of thing.”

Klaus grinned. “My hero.”

Dave did help him, and he did wait, and Klaus stayed sober and happy for all the rest of his years. The world was still ending, but it hadn’t ended yet, and they made sure it didn’t.


End file.
